because it's going to be real hot up in that corner because another thing i'm going to talk about is ab 26. the state made, they was called then not called, so statements i was concerned with because i've been involved with the redevelopment agency since 1968, the affordable housing and work force you need to check it out and have an audit done before these people go sit anywhere and let us have a meeting for me to come back and you can tell me what has happened. thank you very much. >> thank you, dr. jackson. >> good afternoon, commissioners, i mean supervisors, eric brooks representing san francisco green party and the local grass roots organization of our city. i'm not going to get up here to oppose any candidates because it's clear at least

four of these candidates are profoundly impressive in their qualifications for this type of work. but there is a problem and that is with public process. it's vital to remember that the reason we made sure that some of us fought so hard to make sure that neighborhood representatives were on this commission is that that is right of pa process of appointing them was supposed to entail going to those neighborhoods in depth and getting their input on who these appointees should be. for this to be noticed a few days ago at holiday time is very problematic to that process. just to show an example of why this is so important and why we need to wait until the second meeting in january to nail down these appointments, as impressive as they are, none of the appointees when they stood up said one word about the fact that the bayview hunter's point

development area is a federal super fund site. 30,000 people in the bayview hunter's point signed a petition to put a measure on the ballot because of the concerns about the fact of that super fund site because of the asbestos that was released during lanair's project for which they were fined $500,000. these environmental issues were not brought up in the comments of the appointees and that clearly shows that those 30,000 people in the bayview were not sufficiently consulted. they need these appointees to hear from them and they need a chance to weigh in on the process of who is being appointed in the first place to this body. thanks. >> thank you, mr. brooks. is there any more public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, we do have 5 appointees before us for these

5 seats. supervisor farrell. >> thanks, chair kim. first i just want to say thank you to all the candidates that came out today to speak. i have to say, and also want to commend the mayor and staff for putting such a fine group together. i think all your diverse backgrounds and interests are going to be really well served and serve our city. so thank you for that. you know, i think mr. singh certainly a lot of your prior history, a lot of your merchant activity is going to be welcome here and really impressed with who came out to speak on your behalf. miss rosales as well, your background in the city and the people who came out to speak for you, miss johnson, your background, especially in finance, obviously near and dear to my heart but so valuable for what this agency is going to be tasked with and to have your experience and background is going to be incredible valuable and look

forward to having you play an integral role in that. . tamara lee, i think the first person out on tv here on sfgov tv did the dating game. marilee, really impressed with what you did during our redistricting process and believe you have the best interests of everyone at heart and look forward to working with you on this commission. mr. ellington, theo, when you become the subject of one of walter's songs you graduate into a different strata here in city hall and i look forward to working with you as well. i am more than happy to put forward

a motion to move all these commissioners. >> we have a motion to move items 2 and 6 to the full board. and we have a second. supervisor weiner. >> thank you, madam chair, i'm not on the committee but i thought this was important enough i wanted to be here for the item. i just wanted to associate myself with supervisor farrell's remarks, these are all exceptional candidates, clearly the mayor did a terrific job in vetting and coming up with a good slate for this commission so i'm very supportive. >> thank you, supervisor weiner, thank you for being here. >> thank you, chair kim, i actually had the opportunity to meet with all the candidates, each and every one of them over the past few days, mostly last week. i appreciate their reaching out to me. i was not

able to meet with miss mondajar, she was able to talk to one of my staff members. i will be supporting all the candidates. i do appreciate the effort to reach out to get a lot of expertise, a lot of experience, a lot of diversity for this commission. i think it's very vital commission that can set the tone for how other commissions can work in san francisco but certainly to carry out the remaining work for these project areas. i want to say the things i am concerned about. local hire is essential that we actually maximize the effort around local hire on these projects that remain in these areas. affordable housing to me clearly we have in bayview hunter's point large amounts of

(inaudible) housing continue to be built. i want to make sure we are maximizing the most dire economic situations that people are in so we are able to keep people in san francisco. we need to look at business development that's actually going to support local businesses and ultimately we need to look at how our city is dealing with disparity. we're seeing our economy taking off but also running away from a lot of people in the city and making sure we're looking at equity and evening disparities in the city and that's something we don't talk about enough in the city and i'm hoping we can actually move a new agenda that's actually going to be looking at making improvements for the lowest folks. i think about, when people talk about 99 percent, i'm concerned about the bottom 70 percent and make sure we can build unity between the 90 percent to support the bottom 70 percent and hope this commission can look towards

that as some kind of directive. so i will be supporting these candidates moving forward. >> thank you. thank you, supervisor avalos. i did have an opportunity to sit down with many of the nominees that were before us today and i think what i appreciated was not just each individual nominee but the collection of the nominees together. i think there are several different areas of expertise that each of the would-be commissioners could represent and i'm glad there is a wide spectrum that will be of backgrounds and experience that will be represented on this commission. so i am also happy to support this motion moving forward these 5 appointees. similar to supervisor avalos, you know, i just want to recognize that this commission is really a delegation of board responsibilities that we are giving to a citizen advisory committee. and i think there's certainly a number of things that we would want you to look out for, things that we would

be considering if we were to look at many of these items. and i think as we build two new area plans really where we don't have a lot of residents, both mission bay and transbay, that we have an eye towards building a complete neighborhood and community, that we think about the infrastructure, the pedestrian safety, all the promises and commitments that we made to the city when we said that we would build of course these neighborhoods and of course that we ensure that these are diverse communities really reflective of san francisco residents. with hunter's point shipyards, i mean there we are really protecting a community and a promise that we made to existing san francisco natives. there is so much that we need to deliver in bayview hunter's point. we really kind of look upon this commission to move forward with that commitment and promise and we really ask the community to engage with this commission and we ask the commission really to listen to the community and reach out to them as well on your own time. i think that that's very

important and there are many community leaders that have been long active on these 3 area plans and we encourage you to meet with them. i know this is a huge time commitment but i think as much of that work, it's very important as we wind down the responsibilities of the successor agency. so again, happy to move forward theo ellington for seat 1, merily mondajar for seat 3, i want to thank all the member s of the public who came and also waited to speak. we really appreciate that as many of you as possible tried to consolidate your comments as well. it's very clear there is broad support for the 5 commissioner appointees here before us. so we have a motion and a second and we can move forward these items. >> one thing i wanted to add. >> i'm sorry, supervisor afl loels. >> you just reminded me in your comments and i think it's

important for some concurrence from members of this committee about public input. there were some members who came here who spoke for public comment and thought there were parts of the community that weren't necessarily consulted, this project is moving a little too fast. i listened to it but i also feel like the disappointed candidates today but it speaks to the need to make sure we are hearing the community voice and reaching out for the community voice and the folks who are going to be on this commission, i think you have a duty to do that. i consider that to be one of the main parts of your function as a commissioner. >> thank you. so we do have items 2 through 6 that we will move forward to the full board and we have a motion to do that ease as a committee report.

>> item 7, hearing to consider appointing one member term --. >> excuse me, if you can take your conversations out, we still have other items on the agenda and it's hard to hear our clerk if you are speaking inside this room. thank you. sorry, madam clerk. >> item 7, hearing to consider appointing one member, term ending december 16, 2014 to the market and octavia community advisory committee. there is one seat and two applicants. >> thank you, this item was continued from our previous rules committee meeting in november. i really want to encourage folks it please exit the room. i'm so sorry, we do still have other applicants waiting to be heard. we did continue this item from last november 15th and we actually now have two applicants for one seat and i will call you in the order that you are listed, matthew stein, if you could approach us here

today. and mr. steen, i know this is your first time speaking before the rules committee. it's pretty much the same format as you've seen with our other applicants, if you could speak to your experience and qualifications as relates to this cac position. >> yes, thank you very much, madam chair. >> i'm sorry, could you wait one second? >> certainly. >> thank you, mr. steen >> thank you very much, supervisors. my name is matthew steen, i'm a native san franciscoan, growing up in the mission district. currently reside in the lower half of the octavia plan boundaries, i have lived there since 2009, i have lived of course many other places in san francisco, as

many of us have. my previous experience with direct planning issues, land use issues, occurred while i was living in santa barbara for 20 years. i went, i left san francisco and went to santa barbara, went to university there. subsequently i was hired, actually was elected to a local public office and subsequently hired as the executive director of the alto vista community house which is a board appointment as well. while with the community council, municipal advisory council, our planning director left and i was assigned planning dregtor responsibilities for about a year and a half before i moved on to another job working in antipoverty, working with

antipoverty organizations with community action programs. while with my duties as an active planning dregtor were quite sudden, i will already been on the local planning commission, alta vista planning commission for several years, i was somewhere familiar with planning concepts and nomenclature. however, once the applications for conditional use permits and variances and various rezonings started arriving at my desk, i was required by the state government code the county planning department forward these documents to my office, i would then prepare an analysis and send up to the municipal advisory council for that area which was a population of 17,000 unincorporated area of santa barbara county. since returning to san francisco, and that was to return to school at cal berkeley, which i did not

graduate from because i was hired into a corporate executive management with a major national insurance company and did that for several years. i was actually the legal administrator for northern california operations and chief paralegal and i did that for several years with zenith national insurance company. please don't ask me any insurance questions. as i pointed out earlier, i worked with the community action program which is the equivalent of the economic opportunity council here in san francisco. this was community action commission of santa barbara county, which had control over direct services for the entire county of santa barbara and all the six cities within so we had to cover a substantial amount of area, much larger geographally than san francisco but hardly as dense.

so my concerns as a resident in the octavia plan boundaries are the preservation of open space, development of greater community gardening opportunities for low to moderate to affordable income residents, the keeping of upper market street at least as a sunshine corridor so that the building, the new growth and developments occurring along the market street corridor don't overshadow the upper market street. i have been quite concerned with two years ago there was a lot of holes in the ground, to put it plainry, walking up and down market street and throughout the market-octavia corridor and boundaries, most of those holes have been virtually plugged up. there is not much vacant land level for development. this has occurred

in the last 24 months, it's very easy to see, the disappearing vacant land. in any event i would like to also, i am also very interested in pedestrian safety, developing pedestrian amenities along market street, increasing -- decreasing vehicular traffic and increasing bicycling opportunities and i'm also very interested in generally not only the development of low income and very low income housing opportunities as opposed to strictly affordable housing, which is a very wide net on the income scale for people, i'm interested in either preserving what we have or developing new housing projects. this is now of course within the scope of the committee. however, a number of project applications will come before the committee which involve components of

affordable housing, as well -- as a matter of fact there's a develop. occurring at 55 laguna for senior lgbt housing which is being put forward by mercy housing, a fairly well known supportive housing corporation within the city. and in general i really would like having been a life long resident of san francisco and the city of san francisco overall, especially downtown, except for some of the new skyscrapers, has retained a lot of its old character. the mission district has not been developed that much, it's retained a lot of its character. however, i see a lot of the development going on right now where there's mixed use with commercial retail and upscale condominiums. i see this occurring throughout the boundary areas of the market-octavia corridor. but i'm also interested in our

public aesthetic despite our decreasing square footage for higher income earners decreasing and decreasing opportunities for low income residents, seniors and those disabled within the boundaries of this planned district, it's important to be able to preserve and keep these as well as develop new opportunities with local nonprofit agencies which are developing such as affordable housing opportunities for a variety -- for diversity of our population which really needs the assistance, not only do we have to keep our middle class and our families in san francisco, we need to keep our entire age and income and ethnic population spectrum intact in san francisco. but i am very concerned, as i said before, with the public aesthetic. things do have to move forward. so i'm open to

any questions you may have. >> thank you, mr. steen actually, just really quickly, actually the seat has been vacant for over a year, i'm curious how you learned about this vacancy. >> i was actually before the rules committee two weeks ago with an application for the (inaudible) monitoring committee and i became aware of the committee vacancy just prior to those nominations to the monitoring committee. i had withdrawn my application and you had gone ahead and forwarded 5 nominees to fill 6 seats. i am going through the local homeless coordinating board for a separate seat on the shelter and monitoring board to that body. working on both these committees will not really impact my time a great deal. the committee meetings are in the evening, i live within the district, work

part-time right now at laguna honda as a patient mentor to aids patients, those who are hiv positive. i was just really surprised to see or to hear this opportunity, committee opportunity, occur at the same time i was here for the elder monitoring committee. >> thank you. are there any questions from committee members? >> just curious, i used to live in isla vista. just curious what your contributions to the landscape in isla vista were. >> actually, my contribution was more to community services as opposed to direct land use issues. i did serve on the university of california santa barbara lrdp advisory committee

as well as the community advisory planning council which was the pre-city council for the city of calida that is there. i wrote the incorporation proposal for a city of 17,000 called isla vista. while at isla vista, i directly created, developed, lobbied, got funded and hired the first legal defense center which is now in operation by the university of california santa barbara and that was i don't want to say how many years ago that was. that was in 1978. and i was also on the board of directors and helped develop the very first community federal credit union in the united states which is the isla vista federal credit union out of which many have developed, including the san francisco credit union, based on geographical residence as

opposed to a company membership. i also, supervisors want like this as you are all elected, i was the co-sponsor of the first legal ballot option for voting none of the above in the state of california and that was indeed adopted by the santa barbara board of supervisors and allowed by the state elections department to appear as an actual -- and this occurred back in 1978 as well. since then there was a petition campaign to place that on the ballot, in fact it was placed on the ballot in the state of california where it was defeated as well as in the state of nevada where i believe it was passed or modified. so that was in my younger student days while yippies were still around, things of that nature. confrontation politics. yeah, there are a

number of other things as well as training and mentoring probably hundreds and hundreds of people in santa barbara while running employment training programs, housing programs, disability access programs, and utility rate programs. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. steen one of the things that of course came up a couple weeks ago is that this is the low income seat for the market-octavia citizens advisory committee. while we have many qualified applicants we want to be sure there is one member who can represent the point of view of low income residents. >> from the perspective of being a low income representative. there's a declining number of low income residents within the boundaries

of the market-octavia plan. as housing costs go up, a number of residents that are in there that are living in the sro's within the boundaries are living in supportive housing units that are operated by the city, its hsa or directed supportive housing. there are many more of course in the tenderloin. what i would like to do is possibly have the city take a look at mass leasing an entire number of sro's that are currently within the boundaries and working those within supportive housing boundaries where we can remove or have homeless people removed from the street and entered into some type of supportive service environment, perhaps where people can actually re-enter the work force, but what other issues, i would have to say disabled access, disability access for any and all new developments. i have been working that area for quite a

while. and generally just improving the quality of life and safety. a number of people who are pedestrians and bicyclists are also low income so really improving pedestrian bicyclist safety as much as possible and that concerns low income to very low income seniors and disabled. if they can't live there, there's no point in having a low income repltive -- representative on the board, on the committee. >> thank you, mr. steen supervisor weiner. >> thank you, a significant part of the planners in district 8, i work closely with the cac on a regular basis, it's a very important cac and i

thank you for your interest. so a couple things. are you the matthew steen of underground fame? >> i didn't know that was going to come up, but yes, sir. water under the bridge but it still catches up with us. >> thank you. you mentioned wanting upper market to be a sunshine corridor i think was the phrase you used. we all want sunshine to be everywhere in our city, but can you describe what you mean by that? the market-octavia plan did upzone a number of corner lots throughout the upper market area and octavia as well up to 65 feet as part of a transit first policy in terms of so much of that housing or

proposed possible housing is close to transit. so can you just explain a little more what you meant by sunshine corridor? >> my concern was the height limitations and any modifications to those height limitations. i have not had a chance to read the actual plan documents, hopefully i would have access to the documents of course if i were a serving member of the committee. while i may be a bit behind the curve in current planning issues, i am a very quick learner. >> i'm not criticizing, i'm just asking what you meant. >> making sure the height limitations aren't modified upwards so there would be at least -- also as long as they comply with current city ordinances regarding sunshine. >> you mentioned the building of condos. can you just describe a little more what you were referring to?